Joint Review with Melody: Forget You by Jennifer Echols

Melody had 2 copies of this book and the awesome friend and person she is, she sent me one. We both loved Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols so we thought doing a joint review on this book would be fun. I hope you enjoy reading our join review as much as we had fun doing it.

Title: Forget You
Author: Jennifer Echols (blog)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
About the book: There’s a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four-year old girlfriend. Like Zoey’s fear that the whole town will find out about her mom’s nervous breakdown. Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. With her life about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she’s the perfect daughter, the perfect student, and the perfect girlfriend to ultra-popular football player Brandon.

But then Zoey is in a car crash, and the next day there’s one thing she can’t remember at all—the entire night before. Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug—of all people—suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them? Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her. Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life—a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug.

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Here are my questions and Melody’s answers. (all without spoilers of course)

1. What are your first impressions of the book?
Intense, conflicts and lots of drama! When I first seen this book, I didn’t know that this is a story based on Officer Cody Fox’s brother, Doug. (For those who are not familiar with Officer Cody Fox, he first appeared on Jennifer Echol’s book titled Going Too Far, and I loved that book!)

That aside, I’ve to say there are several issues covered in this book besides the love dilemma… things like parental issue (Both Zoey and Doug have that issue with their fathers), infidelity and sex (not in graphic terms, mind you, but you’d be able to understand why this topic was raised towards the end of the story).

I mentioned that this book was intense; with lots of conflicts and drama, and that is always good thing because it keeps us intrigued and wanting to find out more. However, I’ve to confess that I was a little confused (and not to mention unconvinced) over Zoey’s condition when she claimed she has no memory what happened the night before the car crash. She wasn’t drunk, and she didn’t appear terribly hurt or shell-shocked to me either. You can say I was left confused like her; at some point I’ve to re-read a few paragraphs to make sure that I didn’t miss anything (maybe this is part of the plot, but if this is the case, then I’m disappointed to say it doesn’t work for me).

2. There are a couple of steamy scenes in this book. This was probably one of the very few YA books having such scenes. Did those scenes surprise you?
A little (especially on one particular scene but I’m not going to disclose it, haha), but I think it was good to have the author wrote about those scenes with a message behind it: practice safe sex.

3. Did you like Zoey as a character?
Hmm… what shall I say? After some thoughts I was left with one word to describe my feelings towards her: confused. Don’t get me wrong, she was a great character but at times, she seemed like having two different personalities to me – strong and independent, and feeling insecure and whiny the next. But what most puzzled me is, why did she have a relationship with Brandon despite knowing that he is only a friend and a player too?

4. What do you think were the strong points of this book (if any)? The characters, the story or the writing?
Definitely the characters. Zoey and Doug apparently have a lot of issues to deal with, and it was great to find out about their feelings toward each other as the story slowly unfolds. Secondary characters like Keke and Lila (twins and are Zoey’s good friends) are a great fun to read and they definitely add some amusement to the story.

5. Which one did you like more? Forget You or Going Too Far?
Going Too Far, without a doubt (Read Melody’s Review). I enjoyed reading Forget You, but I felt there is something lacking on the plots. And as I already mentioned before, Zoey’s condition left me feeling perplexed, and sometimes she confused me with her decisions. Doug definitely makes a better character as compared to Zoey, but then again I couldn’t understand his feelings and his attitude towards Zoey. Why did he act as if he didn’t care about her despite what he felt towards her is completely the opposite? Forget You is not a bad read, but overall I wasn’t satisfied with the story as I felt there were more questions than answers to it. Going Too Far, on the other hand, has better characterizations and more complexity (plot wise) to the story. Also, the attraction between Officer Cody Fox and Meg McPherson is more clear-cut (to be fair, this attributes to the fact that there is no other guy involved in between Cody and Meg, unlike Doug and Zoey).

Nevertheless, I love Jennifer Echol’s books and I look forward to reading her future releases.
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Read my answers to Melody’s questions here (will add the link when I get it)